Denver Post didn’t drop ball on Broncos-Ravens final score

Here’s what the final edition of The Denver Post’s Sports section looked like Friday morning.

There were a couple of cheap shots during the Denver Broncos drubbing of the Baltimore Ravens Thursday night, and penalties were issued. While there will be no penalties against 9News and alt weekly Westword for their low blows to The Denver Post Friday morning, I will toss the yellow flag on their claims the paper failed to print the final score.

About 65 percent of Denver Post subscribers received newspapers that said exactly that Friday morning. The paper published three editions Thursday night. The first was on the press at 9:30 p.m., the second at 10:30 p.m. and the third – called the chase or three-star edition – rolled at 11:50 p.m., barely an hour after the game ended.

Our high-speed presses churn out 60,000 to 70,000 papers in an hour and our distribution trucks scoop them up and head out to delivery centers. Not all of the final editions made it into the central Denver core. Anecdotally, we know the chase did land on doorsteps in Centennial, southwest Denver and Boulder County.

It’s fair to think that we could have started the chase earlier in the press run to get the final score into more papers, but that’s all the readers would have received and that’s hardly acceptable. It’s our mission to make sure — especially in the digital age – the content that lands in subscribers’ driveways the next morning is fresh and relevant.

What the morning TV anchors and alt opinionators failed to take into consideration when they held up early editions on camera and ridiculed them on blogs — and, I might note, without actually contacting anyone in this building — is that actual post-game reporting and rewriting with insight requires more time than it takes to just blurt out a score.

And we take as much time as we can, but if you’re going to have a printed edition, at some point, the presses have to roll.

Not defensive, just reality. It takes about 6 hours to print 400,000 copies. You can wait until midnight when all the game reporting is on the press before you begin printing, but that means you won’t finish printing until 6 a.m. and half your subscribers won’t get their paper until 9 a.m. or later. Or you can do what the Post — and every other American newspaper — does, namely start the press on time, then update the press when the final game story is in. It’s a tradeoff, for sure: Everyone gets their paper by the appointed delivery time, but a third of the subscribers don’t get complete coverage.

I understand how the printing process works … my comment was in reference to the tone of the blog post. And, yes, this rant by Dana was defensive. Don’t agree, here’s a line from above:

“What the morning TV anchors and alt opinionators failed to take into
consideration when they held up early editions on camera and ridiculed
them on blogs — and, I might note, without actually contacting anyone in
this building — is that actual post-game reporting and rewriting with
insight requires more time than it takes to just blurt out a score.”

First, calling Westword writers “alt opinionators” reminds of the early 1990s, when the DP and Rocky would try to dismiss the paper (I’ll agree that Westword is a waste of paper these days, but not back then). Second, the end of the sentence is the epitome of defensive. “We don’t just blurt out scores, like you do, TV people! We rewrite with insight!”

Okay, but if everyone “understands how the printing process works,” and if everyone understands that on a night when 400,000 copies must be printed it is impossible, given the late-night nature of the news, to print BOTH a 100% complete paper AND get 100% of the copies delivered on time, why is there any ground for 9News or anyone else to criticize the Post in the first place?

Defensiveness, real or perceived, has nothing to do with whether the original complaint is valid. If we all “understand how the printing process works,” then no one would be holding up a Post in the morning on a TV show and asking why 1/3 of the copies don’t have the final score printed in it.

I live 12 miles from the printing plant and continually get a “one star” edition that doesn’t bother to have a story about the previous night’s Rockies game, even when it ends before 10pm.

As Five Points mentions, the Post is dying, if it is dead already and just twitching. With today’s technology, printing a last edition at 11:50 is just sad and pathetic.

I’ve made my living with the Internet since 1995, but I still love the tactile experience of a newspaper. The Denver Post is making it a bit easier every day to cancel my subscription and be done with them.

My question is this: If it’s not OK for 9News and Westword to point out that you did not have the final score in at least 35 percent of newspapers delivered today (though I’d guess the number is actually higher), why is it OK for the Denver Post to mock the headline error by the Columbus Dispatch that said Elway tossed those seven touchdowns?
From the @DenverPost twitter handle this morning: “Headline fail: Columbus Dispatch says Elway — not Manning — threw 7 TDs: dpo.st/18A8qAt via @DenverChannel pic.twitter.com/OcgEfrf4fX”

They way you folks handled it is poor, I’m afraid. This illustrates the EXACT PROBLEM with a printed paper. It’s literally (LITERALLY) irrelevant. I live a few states away, and didn’t see the 9News piece — but at least they were current and live.

Getting upset that you were lambasted is silly. Embrace the fact that your print edition is useless in this type of situation and move on. You are hamstrung by the past, and snitty columns like this show the creeping irrelevance of a once great industry.

I am the News Director at The Denver Post. I have been at The Post since 1999 in a variety of positions, including city editor and investigations editor. I previously worked at The Des Moines Register, and in Greenville, S.C.

I am a Colorado native who has been at The Post since 1996, working in copy editing and design before moving to administration. I created my first newspaper when the Broncos went to the Super Bowl in 1978.

I am the Digital Director for The Denver Post. I joined the Post’s web staff in 1999 — one week before the tragedy at Columbine High School. Prior to my journalism career, I worked in Washington as a legislative assistant for a New York congressman.

I am the Denver Post city editor and a Colorado native, who has worked at news organizations of all sizes. Raised to be a princess, I continue my adolescent rebellion by keeping bees and chickens in the backyard of a house my husband and I rescued from the wrecking ball. Read her full biography »